Alphabet Squadron (Star Wars Book Review)

Have you ever wondered what happened after Luke Skywalker brought back Darth Vader from the dark side and defeated Emperor Palpatine? Or what happened after the battle of the teddy bear-like creatures, the Ewoks against the Imperial army on their home forest moon of Endor? Or after the Rebel Alliance successfully destroyed the Death Star super weapon for a second time? There were so many stories about what came after written over the years, existing on at least two separate realities. Alphabet Squadron is one of those stories.

It is a tense period in the galaxy, far, far away. The Empire had been brought down and those who served the Imperial army are on the run or in hiding. One of those people is Yrica Quell, a former TIE fighter pilot for the Empire elite squadron called Shadow Wing. She had since defected from the Empire and is trying to prove herself, making her the perfect candidate to lead a squadron put together by New Republic strategist Caern Adan to take down the remainder of Shadow Wing. Joining her are another ex-Imperial but long-time smuggler/pirate Nath Tensent, two former Rebels whom squadrons have been decimated by Shadow Wing, the wild, care-free Chass Na Chadic and the peaceful, quite the opposite, Wyl Lark as well as the mysterious masked figure called Kaiross. 

Why Alphabet Squadron? If you have watched closely the spacecrafts in the Star Wars universe, you would at least be familiar with the X-Wing starfighter. Yrica Quell pilots one. Wyl flies another smaller and faster A-Wing. Nath and Chass is each skilful in the Y-Wing and B-Wing assault fighter respectively and Kaiross commandeers a U-Wing freighter.  So, X, A, Y, B and U. Five letters from the alphabet. It is a no brainer. What is interesting about this book is Alexander Freed, the writer tried to create the experience of piloting the different types of spacecrafts, even an Imperial TIE fighter, in his writing. You can feel the challenges of flying the bigger bombers and of balancing the powers of the smaller, more agile fighters. However, based on other reviews I have seen, one might be confused with some of the technical terminologies used and might need to refer to Wookiepedia for some enlightenment, including me.

The book is divided into three parts. Part One is my favourite when the individuals above started at different places, gradually came together and formed the squadron. Part Two is a bit draggy for me as the team members learn to work with each other despite their contrasting backgrounds, flying out for training and actual missions. Part Three is the most confusing but also the most rewarding if you put in the effort. I did not get this part at all on my first read. There were so many people involved (five pilots plus two other characters) making the last few chapters a mess. 

What I had to do was to re-read Part Three and focus on one character at a time until the end of the book. For instance, I focused on Nath Tensent on the first chapter of Part Three and then jump straight to the following chapters and only read Nath Tensent’s sections first. After that, I started again with Chass Na Chadic followed by Wyl, Yrica, Kaiross and the rest. This way, I was able to get a better sense of what is happening during the final showdown in this part of the book.

In a nutshell, Alphabet Squadron is an interesting idea and addition into the Star Wars canon media. However, some efforts have to be put in in order to fully enjoy the story. Book Two: Shadow Fall is already out which I am definitely going to get my hands on soon. There are at least three books planned for this trilogy and I have a feeling I am going to be there at the end.